Runaways Page 4

  “I have a favour to ask you, Mr Redhead.”

  “Sir?” It was extremely unusual for his Manager to address him in this way and Arthur couldn’t hide his curiosity.

  Mr Fowler nodded down at a parcel on his desk wrapped in brown paper, tied with string and sealed with red wax. “This must be delivered to The Metropole Hotel in Brighton tomorrow. I would take it myself but I am unable, for reasons I need not bother you with, to make the journey. I would be indebted to you.” Mr Fowler had a way of asking his staff to do something that made them feel they had a choice when they knew they hadn’t, so Arthur had nodded, put the parcel in his attaché case along with the envelope containing the rail tickets and wondered how he was going to tell his wife that he would not be with her until the evening on her birthday.

  Alice had tentatively ventured ‘you said you would take a holiday’ when Arthur had told her he would not be at home until the evening. She didn’t mention her birthday. ‘I know’ Arthur had answered unhelpfully ‘I have not forgotten it is your birthday. I’m not going into town, I just have an errand to do for Mr Fowler.’ He had smiled as he kissed her cheek and something in his eyes reminded her of the man she had fallen in love with 20 years before. ‘I promise I’ll be home for tea.’

  But he wasn’t.

  David had been out most of the day as well. He sang in the local church choir, not because he was any more religious than the next man but because he liked to sing. The choir always met on a Saturday afternoon to practise the hymns and psalms for the services the following day. Afterwards David would go to an ale house for a glass or two but on his mother’s birthday he made sure he was home in time for tea.

  He watched his mother and four year old Elizabeth lay out the thin slices of ham and carefully spread just enough butter on the freshly baked bread. The parlour was warm and homely, the kettle filled and ready to put on the range as soon as Arthur returned.

  He had said he would be back in time for tea. And he always did as he said.

  Alice wasn’t worried until she began to light the lamps. As the clock on the mantle struck 5 o’clock she decided they would have to start without him. It was an unheard of situation but Elizabeth was getting tired and fractious, so the three sat down around the table and tried to ignore the empty chair.

  David tried to distract his mother as they ate but without success. He even helped her to tidy away, explaining his uncharacteristic behaviour by saying that it was her birthday rather than admit the reality that he was very worried. His father had told him what his errand was and David realised how unusual the request had been.

  “Perhaps he had to go into town after all.” Alice said, as if thinking aloud as they heard the mantle clock strike seven.

  “Perhaps he …” But David couldn’t think of any reason for his father not to have been able to make the journey to Brighton and back in ten hours. Elizabeth had gone to bed at 6 in a sulk so David was sitting alone with his mother by the fire in a heavy silence when there was a knock on the door.

  They looked sharply at each other, both recognising that there was no reason Arthur would need to knock.

  “Mrs Redhead?” The well dressed man at the door spoke too well to be a policeman.

  “My mother is in the parlour.” David answered formally. When the man moved into the light of the hallway and removed his hat David saw the look on his face.

  “My name is Fowler.”

  “Of course Mr Fowler, I was forgetting my manners, do come in. Do you mind the back room? That’s where the fire is.” David took the visitor’s hat and coat and hung them up, pausing barely perceptibly as he noticed the empty hook where a more familiar coat should have been.

  David led Mr Fowler through to the back room. Alice was standing, her back to the fire, her hands firmly in the pockets of her apron. If either of the men had looked they would have realised her fists were clenched under the thin checked material.

  “Do sit down, I’m afraid Arthur, I mean Mr Redhead, I’m afraid my husband isn’t back yet. He said he would be back for tea, you see it’s my birthday, but he isn’t. It’d be him you’re wanting to see.” She saw her son frowning at her. She knew she should stop talking but she thought that as long as she talked the visitor couldn’t say what she knew he was going to say. “Come in Mr Fowler, David, this is my son David, say ‘how do you do’ to Mr Fowler.” But she didn’t give him time to say anything as she fussed about the visitor. “Are you quite comfortable, can I get you a cup of tea? The kettle won’t take a moment. It won’t take a moment to …”

  “Mrs Redhead. Please. Sit down.” Mr Fowler shifted his glance between the two involving both in his words.

  “Mrs Redhead, David, you will realise I am not here with good news.” As the words were spoken David walked round to stand behind his mother and put his hands on her shoulders, pressing firmly on them to give her something else to think about as Mr Fowler continued. “In fact it is the worst.” He paused, knowing the effect his words would have. As he had entered the house he had recognised that the Redheads lived quite well for their class, probably due to the boy’s wage as well as the father’s. The room was clean and well appointed, there were interesting pictures on the walls and there were good rugs on the floor. They probably had a girl to help in the house, a man to help in the garden. This prosperous home was to be broken with the news he had to give them.

  “Arthur, may I call him Arthur?” he looked across at Alice who nodded her head very slightly in assent. “Arthur kindly stepped in to undertake an important task for me. It was imperative that a package was taken to Brighton.”

  “Brighton?” Alice asked, uncomprehending.

  “The Hotel Metropole in Brighton. Arthur agreed to take the package for me and if everything had gone smoothly he would have been back by the middle of the afternoon.”

  “If everything had gone smoothly?” David asked, knowing that something must have gone wrong.

  “Unfortunately, and it with great sadness that I have to tell you, there was an accident, a very bad accident. A train was derailed, it crashed into a station and your husband, your father, he was amongst the casualties.” He seemed to realise he had said the wrong thing, David knew his father was dead, but by using the word ‘casualty’ Mr Fowler had given Alice hope. David looked at him sharply and Mr Fowler spoke quickly to overcome his regret at any misunderstanding. “Arthur was, most unfortunately, amongst the fatalities. He was one of the seven people killed at Stoat’s Nest railway station when the Brighton train was derailed.”

  He paused, waiting for some reaction from Alice; a cry, a sob, something to show that she had realised how suddenly her circumstances had changed. It was some time before the silence was broken.

  “Will my mother have any form of pension?”

  “That’s very practical of you young man.” Mr Fowler was relieved that he was not to be faced with hysteria, practicalities were far easier to deal with. “Pensions are very much in the news are they not.” The question had not been directly answered, but in the evasion David understood the negative as much as if the word ‘No’ had been spoken.

  “So I will have to become breadwinner.”

  “You are a remarkably sensible young man.”

  “I have a mother and a young sister to support. I will have to be.”

  “Indeed you will.”

  Mr Fowler had been expecting the boy to speak with the broad south London accent Arthur had always tried to hide. Through this exchange he had an opportunity to assess the young man who spoke courteously, with no hint of the servility Alice couldn’t help displaying when dealing with someone she would consider ‘above her’. David spoke as he did to visiting choir-masters at the church, with respect but as to an equal.

  “What will you do to help us? After all is said and done if you felt no responsibility you would have left it to others to come to break the news to us.”

  Mr Fowler bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the truth in David’s stat
ement, his interest in the young man growing.

  “When the police arrived at my house some two hours ago they had believed it was to tell Mrs Fowler that her husband was dead. The body had been…” he hesitated endeavouring to find the right word and David, whose hands were still on his mother’s shoulders, felt her wince in anticipation “…damaged and identification was … difficult. They had found an envelope addressed to ‘Mr Harold Fowler’ at my address and so they had made the assumption that the dead man was the said Harold Fowler. Having discovered their mistake they were relieved when I said I would take it upon myself to visit the family. The police had six other calls to make. You are quite right, your father would not have been on that train had I not requested him to go to Brighton this morning.”

  “And we would not now be facing penury.”

  “And you would not be facing a change in your circumstances. I suggest that you would always be able to maintain your family above penury.”

  David understood that this man was testing him, perhaps to see if he might be useful to him. Wise to the probability that Mr Fowler would be more likely to assist them if he felt he had won the bout he changed the tone of his voice. “I will support my mother and my sister for as long as they need me.”

  “I am absolutely certain you will for you are the head of the household now.”

  Alice seemed to be taking little account of the conversation that occurred above her head. She heard the rise and fall of the voices as if in a dream and the words made no sense to her. Her Arthur was dead.

  There had been no passion between them for years, Elizabeth had been a mistake, she had thought she was too old to conceive when they had been husband and wife that one last time. They were companions, good friends, partners, albeit unequal ones, in the business of bringing up their family. She would mourn him and she would miss him but she would get on with the business of raising their daughter and keeping her home together.

  She thought of how he would have felt in his last moments. Would he have known? Would he have thought of her? As her son’s voice rose and fell above her head, she banished such thoughts and never again let herself think about her husband’s last moments.

  “Where is he? We must make the necessary arrangements.”

  Some years later she told her son that she wished she had been listening more carefully that evening because he must have given a truly wonderful performance. The following week a letter from Mr Fowler called David to his office. David was taken under his direct tutelage and, far sooner than he should have been, David was working in the Ministry of War. He began the accelerated charge through the grades of the Civil Service that was possible for a clever and ambitious young man in that Ministry as spy fever swept the country.

  Chapter Five

  David’s story answered so many questions, but raised even more.

  “You speak of your father as ‘Mr Redhead?”

  “Indeed. That was our name.”

  “But you are David McKennah.”

  “Indeed I am.”

  “Why?” I had to ask the question directly because he was not going to volunteer the information.

  He thought for a while before answering.

  “For many years I was both David Redhead and David McKennah. They had separate work, separate lives and in the end I preferred to be David McKennah. David Redhead was not a particularly nice man.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  “Not now. I am not David Redhead. David Redhead was the product of a time now, thank God, a part of history.” He drank the cold cup of tea that had been sitting untouched on the table and continued. “It was not unusual for people to change their identities. There were very few demands to prove that you were who you said you were. Many men in the great strikes of the 1920s and the depression of the 30s moved from area to area using different names whenever it suited them. Many people during and after the war disappeared and re-appeared with a completely new name. They did it for many different reasons.

  “Was Max one?”

  “Of course. Max’s real name was not Fischer. He chose that name, just as many, many people did in those years.”

  Again David was not going to volunteer any information, again I was going to have to ask the question directly. “What was it?”

  He teased me for a while pretending not to remember.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to realise there was no such man as ‘Maximilian Fischer’ before the 1930s.”

  “Would you have let me waste my time?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well… what was it? You’re not going to make me guess are you?”

  “I’m sure you could get close.”

  “I don’t know any Austrian surnames.”

  “You know one.”

  “Monika? Heller?”

  “When Max brought Monika to this country after the war he gave her a new name. She didn’t remember her old one after the awful experiences she had had. Her couldn’t give her his name so he just adapted it. His name was Hellermann.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Max. I thought you hadn’t met till the funeral.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well you said so.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “And you hardly talked to him.”

  “Do you know what we all did those two days? Do you know I didn’t spend many hours in Max’s study that night talking until we both heard your brother drive away?”

  I tried to remember that morning and I wondered if I had imagined the door to Max’s study closing as I came down the stairs just before being greeted by David.

  “Do you know we didn’t talk? No. Of course you don’t. You have assumed things Annie. You must not assume. You must know and until you know you must not think you do. What do you think you know of Max?” David slowly changed his focus from the sky to my face.

  He really wanted to know my answer.

  “The bare bones I suppose. He was a refugee from Austria in the early days of the war but he wasn’t interned. He should have lost everything but seems to have limitless funds because he not only bought into the firm of solicitors Ted and my father worked for but also purchased Millcourt, a substantial house on ‘Millionaires Mile’. He was married and had a daughter, but they died.”

  “Are you fond of him?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I suppose I’m a bit afraid of him. He always seems to have so much control and so much power. But he’s never been anything but kind and generous to me. Look at what he’s doing for me now.”

  “You’re going to spend a year working with Joy and then go on to study for your degree. You will no doubt spend much of that time finding out more about Max.”

  “Will I?”

  “You are an inquisitive lady, you have an inquiring mind.”

  “You’ve known each other for years?” I asked tentatively.

  He nodded. “Yes we have known each other.”

  “But you don’t like each other?” It seemed obvious now.

  “Liking each other doesn’t come into it my dear Annie. We have known each other for five decades, but, until your mother’s funeral, we had not met for more than half that time.”

  “You worked together?”

  “Yes, we worked together.”

  “But you worked for the government.”

  “Indeed I did.”

  “Does that mean Max did too?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Will you tell me something about him?”

  David at first seemed reluctant to talk, taking a few moments before he composed himself.

  “In the beginning Max and I were very alike. We both had the disadvantage of fighting class prejudice, we both had to work to rise above the station in life our birth should have dictated. As I have just told you I had the assistance of an older man who felt obliged to sponsor me. It was the same for Maximilian.”

  “I always thought Max was an aristocrat..”


  “You assumed he was. I have told you not to make assumptions and not to think you know until you do. You must ask particular questions about him, and me, and you must find the answers to those. Have you any in mind?”

  “I suppose it’s where he came from, why he came, how he got his money, why he’s so ashamed of his money, why he’s so mysterious about himself, why he gave a home to Charles, why…”

  “That should keep you busy.” David was smiling.

  “If you know all the answers why don’t you tell me now?”

  “I do not know all the answers. You must find out for yourself and then ask me specific questions. It is the only way.”

  “What do you want me to find that you don’t know?”

  “Well done, my dear Annie. You have seen through me.” He laughed but didn’t answer my question. “You know Annie, you will find out so much about this man but you will find out about other people too.”

  “You?”

  “And people you do not know.”

  “Is there much you wouldn’t want me to know? David Redhead?”

  He nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

  “But you want me to get involved don’t you? When you started talking to me about that lovely picture. You were trying to get me interested.”

  “Annie. I wish that things were that simple. I want someone to know what we did, it should not be forgotten. Also, I am hoping that you might find another man who worked with us.”

  “Then you must tell me everything you know.”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “There is such a thing as honour and, incidentally, the Official Secrets Act. I consider myself bound by that. I will tell you what I can, Annie dear, when you ask me, but you must find out what I know but cannot tell you.”

  “It sounds like what you were all doing wasn’t particularly legal.”

  “It was …” He paused as if he wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “… They were different times, they cannot be judged by the standards of today.”